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Last November I began my search for a suitable vintage Honda CB to restore as my first attempt, something to cut my teeth on before moving on to my dream bike; a 1960s Triumph bobber.
I missed out on a cherry little 1968 number due to the fact that a couple of guys managed to get out to the seller before I could. it was a blessing as the very next day i was scouring a general sales site and found another example around the corner from my parents house - a 1973 CB250 $700 cheaper than the other, at $1,300 I considered it a good deal and bought it. Here are some pics of it as bought.
I will be doing some catch-up with my first posts, a little bit to show.
My son and I took our new toy home and proceeded to get to planning out all of the work we were to do to make this our perfect cafe project. Didn't take long to start disassembling the bike. The previous owner had decided to heat the tank with an oxy and belt in the sides to create knee dents, I had thought about repairing the tank and fixing the dents to make them symmetrical, useful and less dodgy, after realising that the tank also had a leak on the left hand balance pipe underneath, a new tank was planned for.
While tinkering one night I overtightened the top triple and ended up cracking it :'( appears that someone had attempted to weld it once prior only the penetration of the weld looked somewhat lacking, looked into sourcing a replacement of the same type, ended up being cheaper to order a machined top triple from Dime City Cycles, will look trick too.
Started to get to cleaning the bike, was greeted by this level of crud in most areas, decided it was time to give it a proper degrease externally before going any further with disassembly. Ended up lifting the motor out not long after. Used some old BMX foot pegs to get a feel for whether I liked the position of rear sets.
Bought some 90 degree aluminium section to create a key barrel bracket, ended up having a go at polishing it with my bench grinder / polisher i got for christmas.
I thought I would have a go at rejuvenating my gauges. Rather than buying new faces I wanted to brighten up the existing while still keeping some age to them. Decided on pulling them apart, cleaning the face then layering on some enamel clear, used some of my wife's bright red nail polish to liven up the needle tip too. These suit me perfect
Thanks Bootsey, motor is strong, needs some carb tuning to get it running perfect but sounds pretty meaty.
The tank will take some work to fit, my dad and I are building some mounts to use the factory front rubbers. Probably be sorting that out next weekend time permitting.
I had a go at polishing the lower sections of my front forks at this point, they turned out okay however i know i can do better with more fastidious wet sanding and polishing.
I used some aluminium stock to create some small arms to tie the two gauges together and connect them to the underside of the machined triple clamp. I will stick with these for now, likely redesign in the future.
Thought i would put a few parts on and take some photos in the sun.
Welded up a quick stand to get the motor up where i could clean it, following a serious degrease and clean i then sprayed the cases. and began polishing parts
Decided rather than buying new rear shocks that i would have a go at rejuvenating the originals, removed the rust with coke and 00 steel wool, sprayed the springs with Killrust epoxy enamel and polished the struts.
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